Easter Cake Recipes

Easter is a time to celebrate the return of spring and the warmer weather and, with Easter cake recipes, you can turn it into a sweet celebration.

While there are traditional cakes for just about every holiday, there seems to be no specific cake that represents Easter. What we find is that there are just delicious cakes that are iced with frosting colored in festive pastels. When I make a cake to serve with Easter dinner, I usually make a carrot cake because what other kind of cake would the Easter bunny want?

Whatever cake you decide to make, the next step, after it has cooled enough to decorate, is to decide which color you want to make the icing. This brings up the question of which food coloring is best to use.

Food coloring comes in three styles: liquid, gel, and powdered. In general, the easiest to find is the liquid type of food coloring, which is unfortunate because if you ask professional bakers they would say that liquid food coloring is the least recommended type. Not that liquid food coloring is bad, but because it is mostly liquid it can make your frosting or pastillage too soft or hard to work with.

Next on the list is the gel style of food coloring. This style of food coloring also adds extra moisture to your icing but does come in handy for adding little lines or dots of color to your finished cake.

Food coloring powder is not as easy to find but, with more people getting interested in home baking and asking for powdered food coloring at their local markets, it is becoming more available. If you can’t find powdered food coloring at your local market and you don’t happen to have a restaurant supply store nearby, you can easily find powdered food coloring on the internet.

Once you have your cake ready to frost, whip up a batch of your favorite cake frosting (or buy a tub of pre-made frosting at the store) and add the food coloring until you get a nice pastel color.<br>

Once your cake has been frosted, the real fun can start.

Pastillage is what bakers use to create anything that you see on a cake that is edible but not actually cake. If you see a cake with flowers, bees, birds, or what have you stuck all over it creating a beautiful pastoral spring scene, that extra stuff is molded out of pastillage.

To make your own pastillage, you will need a stand mixer. Yes, it is entirely possible to mix up a batch of pastillage without a stand mixer, but you will get quite a workout.

• 1 pound of confectioner’s sugar
• ½ cup of cornstarch
• ¼ cup of cool water
• ¼ teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 1 envelope of gelatin

1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and cream of tartar.<br>
2. Place the cool water into a small saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin over the water.
3. Let the gelatin soak in the water for at least five minutes.
4. Then place the saucepan over a low flame and stir until the gelatin has completely dissolved and the water has warmed.
5. Place the dough hook attachment on your stand mixer and pour the gelatin mixture into the bowl of your mixer.<br>
6. Using the lowest speed setting, slowly add the sugar mixture to the gelatin.
7. Mix until the pastillage is smooth.
8. Immediately remove the pastillage from the mixing bowl and wrap it in plastic wrap. Keep in mind that pastillage becomes stiff very quickly.
9. Remove as much pastillage from the plastic wrap as you will use for one decoration and add powdered food coloring to achieve the shade you are looking for.
10. Mold the pastillage into whatever shape you want.
11. Pastillage can be used to make flowers by forming it into petals and then putting the petals together to form the flower.
12. Once your figures and flowers have been made, just let them air dry and then use them to decorate your Easter cake.

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